Let me start off by saying that my expertise is in domains proper – not websites and certainly not SEO. So I can't say with absolute certainty that a whois change won't affect Google rankings. Nobody CAN give you that kind of reassurance, since Google's algorithm is so inscrutable. What I can say is this: Whois changes are normal. Established companies often reassign the contact info when an employee changes roles. Likewise after rebrands or mergers or buyouts. More often, they simply reformat the whois, going from "Smith, James" to "James Smith" or "Jim Smith", updating phone numbers, standardizing old idiosyncratic email addresses, and so forth. Google would be insane to penalize whois updates per se. Insofar as Google's algorithm picks up on whois changes, this may alert the system to a possible ownership change. So maybe, just maybe, the algorithm re-evaluates the site's trustworthiness at that juncture. But a change of ownership is no reason to penalize a website either. It's much more important to look at the website itself to see if anything a visitor sees is concurrently changing. THOSE changes might upset earlier rankings. A rebrand, for example, can damage SERP rankings if URLs aren't handled carefully, if old links are broken and Google mistakes the site for something entirely new. In all the thousands of articles I pour over in the domain industry, I've never come across a story of a website losing its rankings after a mere whois change. Never. After a domain name change, yes. After a website overhaul, yes. But not after an update to the whois database. Google has been around the block a few times. Their algorithm has dealt with websites being bought and sold before. When domains change hands, that invariably entails a whois change. So it would be idiotic for Google to downgrade rankings purely on that basis. It's unlikely, therefore, that they do. Searching for instances of such catastrophes just now, I couldn't find any. The consensus among professional SEOs, based on a few articles I've sampled, seems to be that whois changes ought not to coincide with other large-scale website and branding modifications. Of course, you should do your own reading. And consult with an SEO professional. But I suspect you're more nervous in this case than you need be. One option might be to ask for whois privacy to be applied during and after the escrow holding period. That would mask the ownership change once the website is paid off and the domain comes out of escrow. But note this: Some whois privacy services invent a long random string of characters for use in the email address proxy. Those random strings are automatically updated every so often. If Google really were fanatical about punishing whois changes, then such whois privacy services would be driven out of existence. Yet they're still here. Conclusion?

I am not an attorney and this is not legal or "professional" advice. Copyright protection will be the easiest, as an artist's work. However, trademark is what you will really want. And that is not at all as cheap. Overall, my advice is for you to get moving, quit worrying about what theoretical other people will do, and work on yourself. Otherwise, you'll remain stuck in "analysis paralysis".

Hello! This is a great question, alimena many new self-employed or entrepreneurs face. When I started consulting 10 years ago i started mentoring people in this exact situation - you know you're good, but you feel like your skillsets are diverse and you obviously want to do something productive that generates steady income thus you're unsure as to what path to follow. If this goes un-addressed for too long you'll see years pass by w/no fruitful effort. My background is in strategic marketing - here are my thoughts for you: First, try coupling your skillsets to a certain industry such as marketing, pr, sales, technology, etc. Are you capable of creating the logos or imagery you propose to someone? Second, based on whether you can deliver and the industry that best suits you - understand your would be role in the current eco-system. For example I would place your interest into marketing but you see, a logo does not make a brand, a slogan requires clever pitching to be accepted at once, and clever repetition to the audience for it to stick and become a slogan or part of the brand. Why would a company go to a consultant who cannot deliver campaigns but only create words on microsoft or sketch a logo but not create it? Even a graphic artist must go through dozens of variations of the same 'finished' logo before one gets accepted and thats because a miniscule detail makes a huge difference to a client. So a sketch is close to delivering nothing. Consulting can be a good gig, but you must understand what consulting is - is not just speaking, unless you're amazing public speaker and jargonist. No, sustainable consulting delivers a product in the form of research, theories, thesis, manages others implementing the effort, works side by side the teams they are hired by. So this means that even for logo and branding consulting you must be perceived as an expert in your field, have experts who like you as a human and respect you as a professional. Specially if you want to simply create verbal content and not tangible brand assets. With that said, on the other hand, let's say that you are able to deliver tangible assets to a company client. Good for you, now lets understand your role in the current eco-system as follows: You are either a disruptor, traditionalist, softserver, specialist, connector or a soloist. Now, is important that you don't get played by your ego - none of these is above another and even through the distruptor classisification might be of your liking it doesn't mean that you are - you, to me, sound like would fit under the soloist. A distruptor is someone with ton of experiences and abilities to bring all others together under one roof service and deliver a hybrid company - I have done that with Unthink, a hybrid marketing agency that caters to small and new business owners who need high budget services on monthly payments and have gathered expert professionals to work under my model and not traditional lump sum plans for traditional and digital marketing and advertising. A traditionalist are becoming irrelevant and depend heavily on relations and past authorities in a field. For newcomers this is obviously out of the question and a dying competitive strategy. Specialists, you could be here, focus heavily and depend on NICHE markets only. These individuals can charge a premium because they offer a single solution to any client and deliver it well because they understand it backwards and inside out. These people are constantly improving, reading, learning and networking and have a pitch crafted down to the T. They depend heavily on connections obviously and patience for their connections to need their services. Connectors, are networkers, not doers. - you could be here too. They make the connections and hire or subcontract others who can serve. Soloists are common - these are web devs, programmers, graphic artists, solo-business owners - who have modest growth goals, low cost of living and thus can comfortably build connections and offer a small variety of services which once sold they create and deliver themselves. (if you know graphic design you would be here) These people are not looking to build an agency right off the bat or at all, instead just make a good living doing something they love either as main provider or as a contractor or sub-contractor to clients directly or other companies. I hope my answer helps you figure out what type of business to start, I cannot give you a direct response because that is a loaded question which answer depends heavily on things only you know. If you would like to chat a bit more give me a call, message me, or google me. Right now, we currently added a yelp account, if you feel like my answer helped me I would invite you to leave a yelp review for me in return :) https://www.yelp.com/biz/unthink-marketing-avondale

LinkedIn, Glassdoor, or search the experts here on Clarity. Good luck!

Does your target market want your solution? Do they acknowledge it creates value for them? Are they willing to pay for it? What words and phrases do they use to describe the problem you fix in their niche?

A mentor should be someone who has successfully accomplished a goal that you wish to accomplish or have great insight. I personally would like a mentor that is helpful, patient, provides good direction, and doesn't mind communicating with me.

[This is a duplicate of the question at https://clarity.fm/questions/4300] Since some new business owners get excited about revenue, instead of gross profit, it is always wise to show the difference. Let us consider as an example, that your business makes $10,000 (revenue) in revenue in one month, and has a cost of goods (or services rendered) of $7,000. This means that you have to pay someone (e.g. a vendor) $7,000 to make $10,000. Then, you are faced with general expenses for the month that amount to $2,000 (utilities, etc.). The excerpts that you quoted from the article mean that you should NOT think that you are spending $2,000 from the $10,000 (revenue), but that you are spending $2,000 from the $3,000 (gross profit: $10,000 - $7,000). As you can imagine, you will be much more cautious when you realize that you are spending 66% of your gross profit on expenses, and not simply 20% of your revenue. While this is certainly common sense, the reason for his pointing it out is that sometimes people do not keep it in mind.

Since some new business owners get excited about revenue, instead of gross profit, it is always wise to show the difference. Let us consider as an example, that your business makes $10,000 (revenue) in revenue in one month, and has a cost of goods (or services rendered) of $7,000. This means that you have to pay someone (e.g. a vendor) $7,000 to make $10,000. Then, you are faced with general expenses for the month that amount to $2,000 (utilities, etc.). The excerpts that you quoted from the article mean that you should NOT think that you are spending $2,000 from the $10,000 (revenue), but that you are spending $2,000 from the $3,000 (gross profit: $10,000 - $7,000). As you can imagine, you will be much more cautious when you realize that you are spending 66% of your gross profit on expenses, and not simply 20% of your revenue. While this is certainly common sense, the reason for his pointing it out is that sometimes people do not keep it in mind.

That's awesome. You are at a first stage of building a MOOC, a Massive Open Online Course portal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course I worked in the growth team of a UK startup that reached an explosive growth in 2015. I like your approach you applied the "don't scale" approach in the Paul Graham (Ycombinator founder) way. http://paulgraham.com/ds.html I invested in this kind of business hundreds of thousands of dollars every month on several acquisition channels. The good news for your business is that bidding costs for Indonesian users are the lowest in the market today so you could leverage this opportunity to invest in CPC/PCM channels. There is a really important thing you will need to do before doing this. Building an email list at the top of the funnel. To learn how to grow your business today call me and I will help you. Ciao Danilo

I am building a NewCo with one of the developers that worked in an itailan Expert Platform called http://www.bemyguru.it. Send me more detailed questions about what you need and I will try to help.

I have just recently partnered with a network of 800 Family Offices around the world that are interested in acquisitions and investments for US based companies. If you send me a pm with the details of your company I could evaluate to build a first connection.

One of the most toxic ways early stage companies fail is picking bad co-founders. Building a business is hard, and if you expect to ever make it anywhere worth mentioning, you're going to need help. Anything past a cute business that makes you a couple hundred bucks a month is going to have more work than you think. There is simply too much to do alone. My suggestion: Do your best to find someone you can work with. The best business leaders find ways to bring in diversity of thought. Assemble your team to fill in your gaps. If you think you have none, you're being dishonest with yourself. Take your time with the search. Picking a bad co-founder will take you nowhere fast, like you've seen. Start with Angellist, ask a lot of questions. Good luck!

Yes, the IRS does recognize their role as non-profit volunteers and I'll list some of what they can deduct from their taxable income. They can choose between deducting gas/oil used or mileage. If they don't have their own transportation they can deduct subway, bus, or taxi fare. They can also deduct food and uniform cost, and other expenses they incur and out-of-pocket costs while volunteering.

Demos and free trials seem to be the only ways SaaS vendors can think about selling. Funny thing: the same issues that plagued the IT field ten years ago (!) continue today. The answer is in education. I don't mean teaching the prospect for free; I mean as the seller educating yourself on the true state of the target market so you can begin the sales conversation on ground they already believe in...and using education as a tool to bring the prospect around to your point of view. I've made a couple videos and written a couple blog posts on the topic. Here they are: Why Demos Fail to Sell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKK5Anu9keM Blog post: http://www.salestactics.org/why-demos-fail-to-sell/ SaaS Sales Problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDZQ_8Srt7g Blog post: http://www.salestactics.org/how-saas-vendors-get-it-wrong/ If you want to develop an effective sales funnel for your SaaS, book a call and let's get started. Given the jump in expertise required, it's probably not something you're going to figure out correctly on your own in a short time, and I can save you that time--and those lost sales.

HelIo, I personally recently raised $1.2M seed investment for my own startup after one year of networking events, startup competitions and pitch sessions. Today I work for a network of 800 US Family Offices as external advisor. We are looking to invest in US based companies for series A,B,C rounds. If you send me more information about your project/pitch with a PM I can evaluate if I can help.

Without question you can! I've put out over 150 apps into the app store without knowing how to code and have gotten over 1 million downloads in the consumer space. You just need to find the best people to help you see your vision through. Start by putting together a clickable prototype so that people can see your vision. Tools like POP are great for doing this. https://popapp.in/ It's hard for people to get a grasp on an idea until they can see it in action. If you want a more high fidelity prototype, get a professional designer and use Invision . https://www.invisionapp.com/. This is especially important when talking to developers or investors. Is it a SaaS (Software as a Service) type product? If so, you can try to get some pre-sales by showing your target customer your clickable prototype to help validate your idea before spending money to get it developed. This alone can save you a lot of time and money. It sounds like you're a good salesman if you've got 1 M in revenue. If you have any questions about how to find people to build it, how to oversee the process, how to quickly validate the idea, or talk through anything else related, I'm happy to jump on a call. Thanks, Greyson

Hi, What you're contemplating is a licensing model. It's like 'franchise lite.' There are several questions you need to answer for yourself before you go recruiting any licensees. For example, are there any business systems that will come with the franchise in addition to the brand name? How will you control the systems and guarantee the client experience? The more 'controlling' your agreement is, the more you may be deemed to be selling a franchise which introduces complicated compliance requirements. I've helped many others work out licensing schemes before. Arrange a call if you'd like to chat. Also, you should read Franchise Warnings. Available from Amazon. David Barnett

I am not a lawyer or an attorney and this is not "professional advice." Hire an accountant who is familiar with licensing. Stay away from the franchising route if you can: it's expensive, the lawyers are expensive, and you are open to attack from inside and out (franchisees and customers). I was a senior executive at an Inc. Top 1000 franchise firm and saw this from the inside--though we didn't have an issue with our franchisees, I saw plenty of franchisors who did. Learn about licensing. Figure out how to write the contract so you have control over some measurable variables, eg. customer count, revenues, # of complaints, etc. As long as the licensee remains in tolerance, they're fine, but if they go outside you drop them. You are going to have to invest in an attorney to create the boilerplate contract, and an accountant to manage the process (which you should probably do first.) Don't cheap out. You're protecting yourself here. BTW looks like Jeff Retchman in this thread could help you as well: https://clarity.fm/questions/1258/how-to-license-with-a-revenue-based-model

Tying your compensation to your performance can not only increase your revenue stream, but also your chances of closing new deals. Instead of replacing your pricing model, you can keep your current monthly rate, but add one or more of the pricing models discussed below. This should not endanger the closing of a deal, since the performance-based portion of the price not only conveys confidence and honesty while limiting the client's financial exposure, but also makes the fixed (e.g. monthly rate) portion look like a good deal because it gets viewed as only a portion of the total cost. Furthermore, doing so will encourage you to keep offering more value, since more value (not just more work) will translate to more revenue. Over the years, I have dealt with many advertising agencies as well as providers of advertising tools. Some typical pricing models from my experience are listed below. Not all apply to every situation: some are good for e-commerce and other advertising campaigns that are directly tied to revenue, others are more suitable for advertising efforts less directly connected to revenue, e.g. publicity campaigns, some social media work, etc. I have tried to detail them here, but if you have any questions, I am happy to discuss them on a call, or in this thread. GROSS PROFIT SHARE: The agency takes a share of their gross profit, which means that it would pay attention to advertising products and services with higher margin, and allocate advertising funds accordingly. This can be tracked by asking the client to assign a gross profit margin to each product/service that the agency helps advertise; then the agency takes a set percentage of that profit. Essentially is like a revenue share agreement, but a variable commission, based on profitability of each product or service for the client, as follows: Formula: Item revenue x item profit margin x agency's rate = agency income For example, the agency shifts spending to campaigns for product A and those like it, because: Product A: $1000 x 50% x 15% = $1000 x .5 x .15 = $75 Product B: $1000 x 10% x 15% = $1000 x .1 x .15 = $15 With larger accounts, it is possible to have a profit share that goes beyond just gross profit, but that is a dangerous territory for an agency, unless its relationship with the client is well established, since even more things that are out of the agency's control can reduce the amount of such profits. REVENUE SHARE: This works just as a profit share agreement does, but is much more common, and certainly easier to track. Since the agency only takes a percentage of the revenue that its advertising produces, regardless of what the profit margin is. PAY PER ACTION/LEAD/ETC.: The agency sets a price that it collects per conversion, which it should track using web, call and other analytic software. The further down the pipeline the conversion, the higher the agency can charge for it. For example the price of a regular website form lead, can be far higher if the provided phone number is answered when called back. Some advertising services make tracking this easier than others, e.g. Google AdWords Call Tracking https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6100664?hl=en. BONUS FOR MILESTONES: It is possible for an agency to set arbitrary or rational milestones for receiving bonus payments, e.g. certain level of revenue generated for the client, or certain level of social media clout/followers/etc. achieved. COST PERCENTAGE: By far my least favourite, some large providers that offer tools to centralize advertising campaigns, as well as some advertising agencies, charge a percentage of the advertising expenditure (Ad Spend). From a client's perspective, the more they spend on advertising campaigns, the more they must pay the agency, regardless of the level of success achieved by those campaigns.

I have worked with some success on upwork.com. I would suggest to lower the budget but pay them in time right after they send you the project and you have properly tested it.

Don't worry, everyone starts off 'drawing what they see' (basically copying). You do that for a while before being able to create your own original work. You'll feel better after reading the New York Times Bestseller, "Steal Like an Artist". From a neuroscience perspective: After some time, the brain circuits that have formed from you copying things (i.e. taking in sensory input, and outputting your attempted accurate version of it) will start allowing you to start putting your own twist on things. This is because 1) the circuits are being influenced by all the different things you've copied, and 2) the circuits are never perfect. Thereafter, when you see new things your brain will put its own twist on it, and your 'original output' will start coming out. It will be, like your brain circuits that produce it, influenced by a combination of 1) all the things you've seen and copied in the past (i.e. the things that have influenced you), and 2) have some unique twists put on it due to your unique and personal brain circuits. That's what original work is.

Create an investor list who have a history of investing in similar lines. It may lead to deep research. Reach out to them via mails/calls for an introductory call. I am sure someone might be interested in your product but patience is the key. I helped a similar client in the past with some back ground research. If interested, I can help you too.. Good luck.

Yo are talking apples and oranges. Capital gains are related to your basis not the form of payment. If you are a cash basis taxpayer, you pay taxes when you receive cash beyond your basis. We can help you with structure.

You need a transitional CMO that brings people in and allows your results to close the sale. If these are typically $500+ creative projects, seek someone with B2B experience. Otherwise someone with ecommerce experience is still ideal.